Issues of property valuation in the context of legal concepts of ownership in the transition to a digital economy

Abstract

The article discusses the impact of conceptual ideas about ownership in an economic turnover. The concept of ownership creates general conditions for its legal regulation. According to the author, the continental unitary ownership model focuses on securing and protecting property rights, while the concept of shared ownership(as a combination of partial interests) tends to ensure the dynamics of property turnover and the involvement of a larger number of subjects in investment processes. For certain economic conditions, the unitary and divided concepts of ownership create mechanisms that ensure the satisfaction of the demands of the economic turnover (market). Property valuation as an applied economic science serves the needs of the market as an institution independent of the subjects, providing feedback between the existing market prices and the fundamental (internal) market value of property rights. The author concludes that for appraisal science, which inherited the conceptual and methodological apparatus of the American theory of appraisal activity, the concept of ownership fully corresponds to the theory of the “bundle of rights”, i. e. concepts of shared ownership dominant in the Anglo-American legal family. This circumstance led to the de facto decorative character of the Russian assessment under the conditions of the Russian civil law, which quite firmly adheres to the continental doctrine of unitary ownership. Considering digital assets as a new class of economic values, authentic to their circulation environment (Internet), the author concludes that at the present time, when transitioning to a digital economy, a conceptual rethinking of property concepts is practically necessary for the further development of valuation science, according to a request formed by civil turnaround in terms of digital transformation.